Upgrading or otherwise migrating a complex database system can be daunting. Complex database systems are typically maintained by corporations, governments, and other large-scale entities (collectively referred to as customers) that have a limited ability to tolerate systems being offline. As such, when mission-critical database systems are to be migrated from a first server system to a second (likely newer and more advanced) server system, a customer may desire an efficient and timely migration.
In many conventional arrangements, when a migration is to be performed from a source server system to a target server system, the source server system is taken offline, the migration between the server systems is performed, and then the target server system is brought online. However, such a migration may result in a significant amount of time during which neither the source server system nor target server system is online. A customer may desire to decrease, as much as possible, the amount of time during which both the source server system and the target server system are offline.